Law of Survival (27 page)

“Madame Aryton, I am also involved in that
other
matter.” Roni glared at Jani, but turned professionally serious by the time Dolly returned to her desk. “Independent of Ms. Kilian, I have been trying to determine whether the alleged idomeni letter has any relation to certain other Exterior documents. Unfortunately, my experience with idomeni documents protocols isn't as extensive as it should be.”

Madame?
Jani stared at the scratched side of Roni's face, but was pointedly ignored. Therefore, she concentrated on picking up the thread Roni held out to her and weaving her part of the tale. “Ms. McGaw is consulting with me concerning these protocols. I'm comparing them to a wide range of humanish documents as a means of instruction.”

Dolly sipped her drink, then set it down on the desk. She crossed her hands in her lap, every centimeter the dignified Family Lady. But her mind worked in circles—her acceptance into the Academy had depended on that ability, as had her survival in Chicago. “In other words, these documents that Exterior Security believes were taken by the idomeni—”

“—are right here in my possession.” Roni hoisted Jani's duffel and patted it proprietarily.

Roni's revelation would have stopped a less-nimble mind, but it didn't even cause Dolly to tap the decelerator. “But why didn't you sign them out, Ms. McGaw? Exterior Security has no record of you doing so.”

“According to Exterior policy, I'm exempt from that requirement. I have to remind Security of this on a regular basis, since it's not a policy of which they approve.” Roni grimaced as she lowered the duffel back to the floor—apparently, not all her injuries were cosmetic, after all. “The builtin assumption is that I am cleared to see any piece of paper in the place.”

“But is Jani cleared as well?” Dolly shot Jani a skeptical look. “My understanding from Exterior Security was that
she would have to make several jumps in esteem to qualify as
persona non grata.
”

“Roni only shows me what I'm cleared to see.” Jani watched Dolly's posture, the way she held her hands.
All directions at once.
She knew the barrage was coming, she just wished she knew Dolly's mind well enough to know where she'd strike first. “I have Yellow clearance at Treasury and Orange at Commerce, so I'm not completely off-the-street.”

Dolly paused to take another sip of her drink. “Roni? May I call you Roni?” She swirled her glass and smiled as Roni nodded and sat up expectantly. “What happened to your face?”

Jani sat back as easily as she could and watched Roni's jaw and neck tense.

“I'm not the most graceful thing on two feet, Madame.” Roni grinned sheepishly and brushed a smudge of dirt from her sleeve. “I missed a step leaving a restaurant this evening, the results of which you can see.”

Dolly's clear eyes never left Roni's face. “Did you fall on top of Jani? She appears a little bedraggled herself.”

Jani shrugged. “I always look bedraggled, Dolly.”

“No, you do not. You're a single word in a Commonwealth of paragraphs and one thing you have never been, Jani Kilian, is sloppy.” Dolly set her glass down so that the ice clinked and liquor splashed. “I'm only going to say this once. You're dexxies who suspect documents fraud, and you're acting accordingly. A ticklish situation all around, but based on my experiences with my old school tie”—she nodded toward Jani—“I'm inclined to stand back and let you proceed. But you must let me know what is goin' on because one thing I most assuredly do
not
like—apart from having to excuse myself from an anniversary dinner with my spouse—is being surprised.”

Jani knocked her fist against her forehead. Her timing with regards to other peoples' evenings just kept getting better and better. “You and Cairn.”

“Twenty-six years today. We count from the day in prep school when she gave me her late great-grandmother's wedding ring and told me I was the one.” Dolly offered the
barest hint of a smile before the veil fell. “But enough about me and mine. I want to hear about you and yours, and I want to hear it fast, and I want to hear it now.”

Jani looked at Roni. She eventually looked back. They communicated in the same way they worked, via mindreading supplemented by the occasional eyebrow twitch.

Jani opened the negotiations. “Can we talk while we work? Time may be getting short.”

They adjourned to another laboratory in a different part of the building. This time, Dolly assembled the equipment herself, eliminating the need for documents technicians with prying eyes.

The three of them worked to activate and calibrate the readers and interpreters, hands flicking over touchpads, speech reduced to the occasional short question or comment. Soon, all the start-up beeps and clicks silenced and indicator lights showed green.

Roni hauled Jani's duffel up on a desk in the middle of the room and cracked the closures, only to have Dolly encircle her wrist in a racing-hardened grip. “I'm waiting for that explanation.”

Jani dug into one of the duffel's side pockets and snatched another meal bar. “A colonial business consortium called
L'araignée
may be the driving force behind this idomeni forgery. They may have also helped Service Intelligence compile information about my past for a white paper that's been coursing up and down Cabinet Row for the past few weeks.” She pulled the wrapper from the bar and bit grudgingly. She'd grown sick of chocolate and caramel, but the sensation of a hollow pit where her stomach used to be convinced her that what she wanted had very little to do with what her body needed.

“I heard about that.” Dolly released Roni's wrist with a small smile and left her to examine it, which Roni did with a pained frown. “Well, more than that, actually. I read it. So did Carson.” She leaned against a counter and folded her
arms. “After the news of the shooting made the rounds, he called to tell me that he'd double the salary-benefits package if you came to work for him. But then, Carson always did have a wild side.” She looked at Jani. “You feel that the white paper and this idomeni letter are connected.”

Jani bit, chewed, nodded. “I think some commercial factions are combining in an effort to destabilize human-idomeni relations in order to force the Haárin to end their business dealings with the colonies. The financial losses that humanish businesses are sustaining because of the Haárin influx are starting to mount.
L'araignée
is the name adopted by a Channel World business consortium that formed to fight the influx. It contains, unfortunately, both legitimate and criminal members, and the legit factions don't yet realize that they've made a deal with the devil. By the time they do, several colonial governments will be bankrupted and their business structures irreversibly damaged.”

Roni had wandered from desk to counter. “
L'araignée
? Sounds like some of the outfits I had to deal with during my colonial stint.” She examined her face in a cabinet's reflective surface, then stepped to the sink. “They'd be more than happy to help panicky Earthbound bureaucrats force out Haárin merchants, while they skim the cream off every transport payload that leaves a colonial dock.” She ran the water and tried to scrub the dried blood off her chin. “That way, they can destabilize the Commonwealth system and make money off of it at the same time, which to them is the best of both worlds.” She mouthed an “ouch” as her overzealous washing reopened the wound, and held a lab wipe over it to staunch the blood flow.

Dolly walked across the lab and plucked her glass from atop a reader case. She had exhausted the gin, and contented herself with crunching ice. “This all seems to boil down to money, and that conflicts with what I know of the idomeni. I lived in Rauta Shèràa for seven years. I schooled with them. Worked alongside them. Human business models do not apply. Their status has nothing to do with what they possess, but with what they are.”

“You know born-sect, Dolly. The Haárin are different. They've developed a regard for the respect and freedom that
doing sound business can earn them.” Jani finished her meal bar and immediately sought another. “In the vast rambling construct of humanish commercialism, they have found a haven. A place where they can live and ply their trades without the interference from born-sect dominants. A place where the threats of born-sect unrest no longer touch them. They don't want to uproot their lives because two propitiators can't decide which spice should be used to flavor meats in the morning and which at night. They don't care about that anymore. Some of them are so far removed from their native culture that they've adopted humanish mannerisms and habits.” Visions of Dathim Naré danced in her head. “I met an Haárin recently who wouldn't return to the worldskein if Cèel shoved a long shooter up his backside and threatened to press the charge-through.” She comprehended the silence, and looked up to see both Dolly and Roni regarding her with their hands over their mouths.

Dolly spoke first. “Jani. What an image.”

Jani pulled the black-covered file out of her duffel and walked to the reader. “You know what I mean.”

“Yes.” Dolly's eyes widened when she saw what Jani held. “Now that we've gotten the xenopolitical discussion out of the way, perhaps you could tell me what point of human documents protocol you needed to illustrate using a ‘Ministers' Eyes Only' file?”

“I'll take that.” Roni rushed to Jani's side. A subdued tug-of-war ensued until Dolly's intervention-with-arched-eye-brows gave the advantage to Roni, who plucked the top sheet from the file with an air of triumph and inserted the page in the reader slot.

Dolly cracked a cube between her teeth as she inserted herself between Jani and the reader, blocking Jani's view of the display. She removed the sheet from the reader slot and read it. “Roni, is this really germane to the discussion?”

Roni looked over her shoulder. Her eyes goggled. She took the paper from Dolly and tucked it back in the file.

Jani walked to the sink to wash her hands, and tried to catch a glimpse of the file along the way. “What is it?”

“Details of a Minister's personal life, which will no doubt be used to sway a vote or two in some future Council session.”
Dolly's voice had taken on a roughened velvet quality that, like Jamira Shah's questioning lilt, Jani remembered all too well. “Just how did you go about choosing these files, Roni?”

“We were in a hurry, Dolly. Roni became confused.” Jani returned to the desk and pulled all the files out of the duffel. “OK, we're looking for Channel World references. Guernsey. Man. Jersey. Acadia. We're looking for my name. Service C-numbers. Haárin or idomeni references. For damned near anything we can find.”

Dolly walked up to the desk and braced her hands on the edge. “Jani, what did I tell you in my office? Do you remember that far back?”

Jani held a sheaf of files out to her. “And what did I ask you two days ago? Do you remember that far back?”

“Jani—”

“Do I need to repeat it?”

“Wait a damned minute—”

“Do you think I'm wasting your time? If you say yes, we'll turn these documents over to you right now. You can return them to Exterior, and tell them they magically appeared on the Registry front step. Tell them anything you like.” Jani pushed the files into Dolly's hands. “But here's something to keep in mind as you cover your Registry backside. Someone tried to kill me. They tried to kidnap my parents. They're trying to destroy Nema. I'm trying to find out who they are. At this particular moment, I don't have much patience with proper form or peoples' feelings. At this particular moment, you're either with me or against me, and either way, I'll remember till the day I die.”

“Ja—?” Dolly looked from Jani, to the files in her hand, then back to Jani. Started to speak. Stopped. Then she turned and walked to an open stretch of counter top, spread out the files, opened one, and began to read.

“And my assignment is?” Roni stepped up to the desk and held out her hand.

Whether the strong emotion that flushed Roni's face and tightened her voice was anger or embarrassment, Jani didn't know or care. She handed Roni her share of the paper, then watched her pull a lab chair up to a bench, sit down, and
open a file. Only then did she sit down herself and open the topmost of those that remained.

 

“I think I found something.”

Jani looked up to find Roni hurrying across the lab toward the reader, and rose to join her. “What is it?”

“Meeting notes. Stuck off by themselves in a file. Guernsey watermark. They're encoded, but the reader should be able to decrypt.” She pounded a beat on the reader to shake it out of standby. “Why do people take notes? Don't they know that once they write it down, they're mine for life?” Roni inserted the sheet of parchment in the reader, then stood back, rocking from one foot to the other as the paper disappeared into the slot. “On the other hand, this could be another false alarm.”

Jani flexed her stiff back, her eyes on the instrument display. “Let's see what it says before we write it off.”

“Write what off?” Dolly entered the lab juggling three dispos of vend alcove coffee.

“Roni's found meeting notes.” Jani took one of the cups from Dolly and sniffed the steam. It held a sharp, burning odor, which meant the brew was old, which in turn meant that it would taste like fuel to her hybrid tastebuds. She didn't want to ask Dolly if the Hands of Might could lay hold of some pepper to kill the taste, however—judging from the look on Dolly's face, those Hands wouldn't be averse to boxing an Ear. Instead, Jani drank, swallowed, and kept her grimace to herself.

Roni took her own cup with the look of a drowning woman who had just been thrown a float. “The whole damned thing's encrypted,” she said between sips. “Why would someone encrypt meeting notes? If the topic was so touchy, why write it down in the first place?”

“Sounds as through someone wanted to cover themselves.” Dolly tossed a couple of tablets in her mouth, then washed them down. “But that doesn't mean the matter has anything to do with what we're investigating here. Nothing in this melange has even come close to whatever it is Jani's looking for—we've found everything from personnel pro
files to construction plans for colonial buildings.” She pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. “This will turn out to be someone's shopping list.”

Behind them, the reader beeped. The original document emerged from the slot, followed a few seconds later by a decrypted fiche.

Roni grabbed them both, then handed off the original to Jani as she plundered the copy. “It's a note to Anais Ulanova,” she muttered after a few seconds. “Bet that's why they wrote it down. Probably kept copies in lockboxes, too. What the hell does this mean? ‘Met with Le Blond—'”

“Let me see it.” Jani plucked the fiche from her hands and read it. “Met with Le Blond today. He will be at Exterior Main in three weeks. He says there are no problems. Service is set.” She glanced up. “I don't know whether that's service as in served or
the
Service.” She continued to read. “Contracts are set. Are—?” She cleared her throat. “Are you sure we must use him? He kills with his eyes. He is so cold—I do not trust him.”

“Jani?” Dolly leaned toward her, headache-narrowed eyes lit with question. “What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost.”

“No. I've seen those before.” Jani beckoned to Roni. “Can you recall whether Anais would have been at Exterior Main in time to meet with Le Blond?”

Roni glanced at the date. “I'd have to check her calendar history.”

Dolly gestured toward the lab comport. “You can do that from here.”

Roni shook her head. “Not tonight, Madame. Exterior Security disconnected the Annex from CabNet when they filed the missing doc report. We're in lockdown until further notice—I'd have to go back to my office to check this.”

 

“I don't know how the hell you talked us out of there.” Roni fell into the people-mover seat, then leaned forward and rested her forehead against the seat in front of her. “Dolly wanted to kill you. She wanted to string you up by your heels over boiling oil. She wanted—”

“She wants to find out what's going on more.” Jani
watched the dead-of-night city drift past the 'mover window. “If Dathim could recall in which pile he found those notes, I'd send him back to steal the whole stack. It would all be there. The meetings. The payoffs. The plans. Everything pertaining to
L'araignée
's birth. I bet the trail would lead right to whoever composed The Nema Letter and spearheaded the white paper.”

“Let's not give Dathim Naré any more espionage practice, OK?” Roni sat back slowly. “Like I said back there, I'd dealt with outfits like them before. If you'd leveled with me from the beginning,
I
could have searched Anais's desk and uncovered the whole damned story.”

“No.” Jani shook her head, stopping when the rocking seemed to intensify.
“L'araignée
's been leaving a trail of bodies. Ignorance is survival.”

“Is it?” Roni rocked her head from shoulder to shoulder until the bones in her neck cracked. “That little bit Dathim stumbled upon is all we're going to get, unfortunately. My guess is that everything on Anais's desk has been locked up by Security, to be released into her hands only.” She poked the plastic sack in her lap, into which Jani had transferred all the Exterior files except for The Nema Letter. Dolly had insisted on holding on to that “for safety's sake.” Whether she meant the document's safety or their collective security, she didn't make clear. Considering her tense mood, Roni and Jani thought it wiser not to push for clarification.

“You're going to have a hell of a time burying those.” Jani unbent her knee as far as she could without hitting the seat in front of her. The sharp pain had damped to a dull ache, but every step between the 'mover stop and her flat still promised agony. “What will you tell Lescaux?”

“I don't know. I'll think of something.” Roni yawned and sagged further into her seat. “‘Le Blond.' You paled when you read that fiche.” Her breathing slowed, as though she neared sleep. “You think it's Lucien, don't you?”